Refine an existing design, rather than inventing something new

The greatest innovations don't come from inventing something
new, rather they come from coming up with a creative new way of
doing something old, argued Andrew Robertson, CEO of advertising
agency BBDO.

Speaking at DLD Women in a talk called "what we can learn from an old naked
guy" (all will become clear), he said: "It's about finding an
existing, established behaviour that you can find a better way of
doing."

He cited Malcolm Gladwell's piece on the New Yorker in the wake of Steve Jobs' death, which argued
that the Apple CEO was not a great inventor in the way that Edison
was, but a great perfector. "He took things that already existed
such as the MP3 player and the mobile phone and perfected them. He
didn't invent them."

Robertson also talked about Michelangelo, having learned about
the Renaissance artist from an expert in art history that he met
during a trip to Italy. He described how all of Michelangelo's work
had been commercial, up until the very end of his life. He relied
on his patrons, the Medici family. "We hadn't yet got to the point
where somebody could cut a sheep in half, stick it in a tank with
formaldehyde and Charles Saatchi would make a market for it. Every
was commissioned."

One day Michelangelo was given a brief: "Do me a David," or
words to that effect befitting of the year 1501. David (of David
and Goliath fame) had been portrayed tens of thousands of times
before. "For an artist, it's not a good moment to be asked to do
something that thousands of people have already done," said
Robertson, "And yet he produced the single most important piece of
sculpture ever produced. He was given the same brief that had been
given to thousands of artists before him. He stuck to the brief but
broke all the rules."

Up until that point, David has always been represented as a
teenage boy in a tunic after he'd slain Goliath. He often had the
giant's head at his feet. Michelangelo, on the other hand, chose to
depict David as a symbol of strength rather than weakness, as a
physically strong adult, but completely naked and before he had
killed Goliath. The artist also used a large piece of marble that
another sculptor had rejected, something that media executives --
as Robertson pointed out -- would call "remnant inventory". This
allowed him to create a sculpture that was more than twice
life-sized.

Robertson concluded: "It's easy to get sucked into believing we
should be looking for brand new things to do. My lesson is that
it's more of a challenge to find a better way of doing something
that is already being done."